1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus such as a printer.
2. Related Art
As an example of the liquid ejecting apparatus, there is an ink jet-type printer that performs printing by supplying ink (liquid) contained in a liquid supply source to a liquid ejecting unit through a liquid supply path and ejecting the ink to a medium from a nozzle of the liquid ejecting unit. In addition, some of such printers have a replaceable expendable item such as a filter which collects a foreign substance such as a precipitate or a bubble in the ink. Further, the expendable item means an item which is changed into a different state when used and malfunctions. Hence, a degree of expendability of a filter indicates a degree of clogging. Also, in such a printer, in order to determine time for replacement of a filter as an expendable item, the degree of clogging of the filter is detected (for example, JP-A-2010-228147).
However, in JP-A-2010-228147, in order to detect clogging of a filter, flow sensors are provided on the upstream and downstream sides interposing the filter therebetween, respectively, and a temperature sensor for detecting a temperature of ink is provided. Therefore, in order to detect clogging of a filter, a dedicated sensor needs to be provided, which results in an increase in the number of components.
Further, this is not limited to the printer that has a filter, but may also be generally applied to common liquid ejecting apparatuses having the expendable item.